It’s not too late for Senate Republicans to start correcting the worst mistake they’ve made this yr: confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Well being and Human Providers.
In just some months, Kennedy has helped carry a pox upon the nation — and till Republicans get severe about holding him accountable, extra People will die, and the president’s legacy on well being and security might be badly tarnished.
Kennedy, who has no coaching in drugs or well being, has lengthy been the nation’s foremost peddler of junk science and the crackpot conspiracy theories that circulate from it. The best hazard in elevating him to HHS secretary was all the time that he would use his place to undermine public confidence in vaccines, which might result in unnecessary struggling and even dying. And so it has come to move.
In 2000, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention declared that measles had been successfully eradicated within the U.S., due to vaccine charges that hovered round 95%, the extent wanted for herd immunity. Now, in no small half due to the doubt Kennedy has been sowing concerning the security of vaccines, the U.S. is within the midst of what’s shaping as much as be the worst measles outbreak for the reason that early Nineties.
Measles resurgence
Earlier than this yr, nobody within the U.S. had died from measles in a decade. This yr, three individuals have died, two of them kids. But Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, saying it was “not unusual.”
Within the aftermath of the deaths, he didn’t use his place to induce dad and mom to vaccinate their kids, or warn of the risks of failing to take action, or declare vaccines protected, or allay misplaced issues about them. As a substitute, he did what he has been doing for many years: He offered the security and efficacy of vaccines as an open query for people to determine. Not surprisingly, the outbreak continued — and has worsened.
Some 1,300 instances of measles have now been reported this yr, with kids accounting for two-thirds of them. Greater than 160 individuals have been hospitalized — and survival doesn’t assure a full restoration. Measles can result in pneumonia and worse, together with mind swelling and everlasting incapacity.
Measles is hardly the one infectious illness that might make a comeback below Kennedy, and his assault on lifesaving vaccines has stretched effectively past his use of the bully pulpit. Along with firing scientists and reducing analysis throughout a wide range of businesses, he not too long ago fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, which recommends the vaccines People ought to get. Of their place, he appointed a wide range of individuals with out important experience in immunology, together with these within the anti-vaccine motion — which guarantees to make the unfolding catastrophe even worse.
The chair of the Senate well being committee, Invoice Cassidy, voted to verify Kennedy at the very least partially as a result of Kennedy dedicated himself — or so Cassidy thought — to sustaining the vaccination panel “without changes.” A lot for that.
Cassidy may need a proper to really feel burned if he hadn’t been so myopic. In the course of the affirmation listening to, he requested a query that summed up the state of affairs clearly. “Does a 70-year-old man,” Cassidy mentioned, “who has spent decades criticizing vaccines, and who’s financially vested in finding fault with vaccines — can he change his attitudes and approach now that he’ll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?”
The reply was all the time apparent.
Deceived themselves
Kennedy by no means gave any indication that he could be altering his stripes, however Cassidy and his colleagues deceived themselves into considering in any other case — or, worse, they knew higher and easily buckled to political stress, inserting their very own political careers above the lives of their constituents. Just one Republican, Mitch McConnell, voted towards affirmation. McConnell, who contracted polio as a baby earlier than the vaccine was found, understood what a harmful sport his colleagues had been taking part in.
Senate Republicans have made this mess, and they should clear it up. They’ve a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of Kennedy, and so they have an ethical duty to do every part attainable to constrain Kennedy’s lethal actions — or drive him out. That ought to embrace demanding that the White Home stress Kennedy to start out selling religion in vaccines, together with by appointing extra certified individuals to the vaccine panel — or hearth him.
In the event that they received’t do it to save lots of lives, they need to do it to save lots of their very own pores and skin. Democrats might hardly dream up a greater line of assault than the one Kennedy is giving them, by turning the GOP into the celebration of measles — the Grand Outdated Pestilence. That’s not going to play effectively with dad and mom.
Making America wholesome once more begins with bringing Kennedy to heel — or sending him packing. Till Senate Republicans summon the braveness to do this, extra People will get severely sick and die — and Republicans will undergo the backlash on the polls.
